Conventionally, there are cases in which: for example, in order to manage movements of cars and trucks, road conditions of various points are picked up by video cameras, and recorded in video tapes, and after these tapes have been brought back to the office, the images at the various points are specified, and reproduced, and in such cases, first, at the time of picking up those image, by utilizing the tape counters and timer counters attached to the camera, the shooter needs to memorize the image-pickup points and the count values in association with each other, and upon reproduction, the shooter reproduces images of the road conditions at desired points by reference to the recorded data.
However, if there are many image pickup points and long pickup periods, the management of the recorded data becomes complicated, and the editing processes require a great amount of time and workloads. In order to solve these problems, for example, GPS-use position image data collecting apparatus and a reproducing apparatus thereof, as shown in FIG. 48, has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-248726. In this apparatus, position data at image pickup points and image data are made to be matched with each other so that desired image data is easily reproduced.
Referring to FIG. 48, based upon GPS signals received by a GPS (Global Positioning System) antenna 301, a positional information detecting section 302 detects the latitude and longitude of a present position to form position data, and outputs this data to an address matching section 308. An image input processing section 304 outputs an image signal picked up by an image pickup device 303 to an image storing section 306 and also to the address information matching section 308. The image storing section 306 records the inputted image signal in an image recording medium 305 as image data together with image pickup time data. The address information matching section 308 forms an image managing database 307 in which the position data is made to be matched with recording addresses on an image recording medium in which the image data is recorded.
The image position specifying section 313 reads map information from a map information recording medium 309 to display a map, and the reproduced point is specified on this map. An address information conversion section 314 acquires a recording address of image data corresponding to the address of the point specified by the image position specifying section 313 by retrieving the image managing database, and outputs this to an image output processing section 316. The image output processing section 316 acquires image data corresponding to the recording address from the image storing section 306, and reproduces the image data thus acquired. Consequently, the image data at any desired point is immediately reproduced.
In this conventional GPS-use position image data collecting apparatus, however, the address information matching section 308 carries out the matching process between the recording address and the image-pickup position of the image data simultaneously with the acquisition of the image data and the positional information. Therefore, the image pickup device 303 for picking up the image data, the GPS antenna 301 and the positional information detection section 302 need to be connected through communication lines, etc. For this reason, for example, if a plurality of images are picked up when a plurality of vehicles are traveling side by side virtually at the same position, the devices, such as the above-mentioned image pickup device 303 and the positional information detecting section 302, need to be attached to each of the vehicles. As a result, the entire scale of the apparatus becomes larger, and it is not possible to carry out an efficient image pickup operation.
Moreover, in this conventional GPS-use position image data collecting apparatus, the position on the map is specified by the image position specifying section 313. However, the positional relationship with the position and the image data to be displayed is not clarified on the map, with the result that it is not possible to positively reproduce image data representing a desired picked-up position.
Furthermore, if the user wishes to reproduce image data between desired two points, and if a plurality of sequences of image data are used for the reproducing process, a problem arises because the connection between the sequences of the image data tends to be interrupted.
Moreover, if, by using a plurality of sequences of image data, images of vehicles, etc., passing through a crossing point such as a junction, are reproduced while one of the sequence of image data is being switched to the other sequence of image data, there is a case in which the shooting direction of one of the sequence of image data is different from the shooting direction of the other sequence of image data, and the resulting problem is that the picked-up subjects suddenly change at the crossing point, displaying poor images.
Furthermore, when unnecessary image data is contained in a sequence of picked-up images, an editing process for generating a new sequence of image data by removing such image data is carried out. However, complex work is required in specifying the image data area to be removed from the sequence of image data, resulting in a problem of poor operability.
If images are collected by loading the image pickup device on a vehicle, etc., since the moving speed of the vehicle is not necessarily constant due to, for example, the stoppage at a signal, redundant image data tends to be included in the picked up images, failing to carry out an efficient image data recording operation.
Moreover, not limited to the ground, there have been demands for positively specifying image data picked up at a roof of a tall building or at an underground shopping center on a map. Another demand is to positively indicate which portion on a map a building within a reproduced image is located. Still another demand is to know a difference to be caused in the scenery when a new building is placed within a specific position of a reproduced image. Furthermore, the user sometimes wishes to view the state of images that are currently being picked up at real time.
Therefore, the object of the present invention is to provide an image collecting device, an image retrieving device, and an image collecting and retrieving system, which easily collects image data by using a simple structure, properly specifies and reproduces the picked up image data, allows the user to accurately confirm the positional relationship between the reproduced image and the map, and easily carries out various processing treatments on the image data in a flexible manner.